Frequency Blocking
As information tries to be free and free flowing, authoritarian regimes will have to find new ways to block information. Just as satellite Internet will likely come to all phones by the end of the decade, there’s opportunity for profiteering companies to create and market new signal blocking technologies.
This technology might entail geostationary satellites that overwhelm the signals of other provides or local arrays to jam connections. Other technologies might also involve localization of signals.
Authoritarians might also ban and punish possession of illicit hardware. This might be enough of a disincentive to prevent mass adoption of communication technology. However, the miniaturization and proliferation of satellite communication on popular devices might be too prevalent to prevent this.
The end result is that by the end of the decade a few companies who are OK dealing with countries that are not never nice will end up making blocking devices that will work half the time. It probably won’t be enough to keep information at bay.
